Gruel is a mixture of cereals – usually oats, wheat, rye or rice. It is made with the scraps of the harvest, milled and boiled in water or milk to make a thick, white, pasty mixture devoid of aroma or excitement of any kind. A pinch of salt or sugar might be added to awaken some semblance of flavour. Historically, gruel was part of the staple diet in Western countries, especially for peasant farmers. It could also be made from millet, hemp, barley, or – when times were hardest – from chestnut flour or even acorns, if they were not too bitter. Gruel was also given to the sick and to newly weaned infants, as it was easy to digest and high in nutrients.
“More gruel that stinks like the British Army!” grumbled one schoolboy as he waited in line.
“Better than starving,” retorted his chum.
“We’ve been eating this horrid stew for five days straight!” whined another.
“We’re prisoners. We lost the war! Where’s my mother?” cried another.
Elizabeth had risen early to get to work. She had set an empty barrel over a wood fire, and prepared the gruel that would be served to the schoolchildren. Her mission in the Allied Army was to feed the boys of the Charlottenburg school in Berlin. Germany had surrendered, and Adolph Hitler had committed suicide. “That’s just a rumour!” cried one boy. “Nobody can take down the Reich!” cried a small lad. “Then why is this shrew here, serving us stinking English gruel?” grunted another. The children waited in line to receive their portion. Berlin had been destroyed, and the city was in ashes. German women had been threatened with expulsion from the city. Such was the way of war; it was an unjust fate in the eyes of the queuing children, their stomachs empty and rumbling. “If I had a machine gun, I’d mow her down where she stands!” yelled one boy, as the others burst out laughing. “That’s enough!” growled Elizabeth. She well understood the distress these children were in, homeless and not knowing whether their fathers were alive or if their mothers had been raped. Berlin was gone! Germany had lost. What would they do with all these boys who had been brainwashed since the day they were born? “Long live the Führer!” cried one boy, raising his hand. He took his portion of gruel, and gulped it down in one go. They quicker you ate it, the less you tasted, and the fuller your stomach felt. It was like a bullet, passing through the skull of a Nazi officer in a blinding flash. Hitler’s suicide had left its mark on the German psyche.
The children had been left to look after themselves. For now, the British authorities insisted that they sleep inside their schools on whatever mattresses could be found, in what had once been their dining hall. They were watched over by Elizabeth, who constantly attempted to tell them stories in her incomprehensible German. Fairytales, legends and fables were of little interest to the boys. “Stop!”, “Get out!” they told her before going to sleep at sundown. The more of them there were, the less alone and dispirited they felt. But a father was still a father, and a mother’s love was irreplaceable. A few of the boys had fallen asleep as Elizabeth watched over them, her lids drooping. Then it was her turn to sleep. Nights in Berlin were scary. You could still smell the smoke from the bombs. The moon was blood-red, and the nights were long and unpleasant in these days of defeat. Two of the children were struggling to sleep, and whispered to one another late into the night:
“I feel sick. I can’t take any more gruel,” complained one.
“If Elizabeth knew how bad her soup tasted she’d think twice before serving it to us!”
“The war’s over. We lost. They said no-one could kill the Fuhrer, then he killed himself.”
Alan Alfredo Geday
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